Throughout the world, city planners and governments grapple with the challenges of urban planning using remarkably similar land use regimes. Yet the realisation is increasing that real urban problems – crime, decay, drug abuse, inequality, depression and alienation – are not easily solved by the classic devices of a strategic plan and a zoning map. Planning regimes are therefore in constant flux, as planners and governments adjust and experiment to address these problems, often with little awareness as to what they are trying to accomplish.

In Comparative Urban Land Use Planning: Best Practice, Leslie A. Stein digs deeper, drawing on examples from around the world to discover the best practice responses to the critical issues of planning and urban social problems. Although every city has its own cultural and political milieu, patterns of change and levels of success can be discerned and universal lessons learned. By comparing the advantages and pitfalls of different urban planning approaches and considering their underlying ideologies and assumptions, he proposes a more insightful approach to the role of land use planning.

This book is both scholarly and emotional, expressing a great love of cities and calling for a more clear-eyed approach for their care.

About the author

Leslie A. Stein is Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Sydney, Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. He was recently Senior Fellow at the Global Center for Environmental Legal Studies at Pace University in New York and Visiting Scholar at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. He was Chief Counsel to the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy and his books include Principles of Planning Law. Professor Stein is also a certified psychoanalyst and a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York.